The present invention relates to a hemolysing solution and a process for the hemolysis of blood and for stabilizing the concentration of glucose in hemolysed blood.
Because of the relatively small amount of work involved, determination of the concentration of glucose in whole blood is preferred to a determination in plasma or serum. A further advantage of using whole blood is that a very small sample size (for example 20 .mu.l) is sufficient for a determination. However, in a sample of whole blood, the enzymes contained in the erythrocytes effect glycolytic degradation of the contained glucose. For this reason, either the determination of glucose must be carried out immediately after taking the blood, or the glycolysis must be inhibited by suitable methods. Inhibition can be effected either in isotonic solution without hemolysis or after hemolysis of the sample, which can be achieved, for example, by osmotic shock or by means of digitonin.
A number of glycolysis inhibitors are known, for example, fluorides, halogenoacetates, N-alkylmaleimides, acetic acid and the like. The main disadvantage of the conventional hemolysing solutions containing these inhibitors, for use in the determination of glucose in whole blood, is that these solutions are either stable for only a limited period or do not completely inhibit the glycolysis. For example, the lifetime of the hemolysing solution of German Auslegeschrift No. 1,813,848 is only about 3-4 weeks. As a result, these solutions must be freshly prepared at short intervals of time in order to be certain that they are still completely capable of functioning.